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#1 2009-04-03 12:23:43

peets
Member
From: Montreal
Registered: 2007-01-11
Posts: 936
Website

promiscuous users

because I run stuff from testing and there's always something out there ready to crash firefox (with gazillions of tabs open) or X, I've split my personality in three. I have three users: peets, parsons and emile (for personal-, work-, and school-related activities, respectively) that each run their own X server and stuff. If something fails for one user (and doesn't make me lose keyboard and mouse input), the other users can resume their activities unscathed.

There's a few things I'd like to know about this peculiar setup:

1. Is it possible, in a safe way, to login 3 users at once, and start 3 X servers in parallel? i.e. I boot, I login as peets, type my password, and then get something like "starting 3 Xs in 5 seconds, press any key to cancel". All users currently share the same password, and are all part of the same group. SSH can log in without a password...

2. Is it possible, in a safe way, to allow passwordless 'su' between these 3 users?

3. Any tips on sharing configs (dotfiles) between the three users? I've copied peets' dotfiles over to the 2 other users, then made small tweaks. Sometimes I modify something with one user and would like the change to apply to the other two as well. So far manual copying of lines/files hasn't been too complicated.

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#2 2009-04-03 13:46:28

LeoSolaris
Member
From: South Carolina
Registered: 2008-03-30
Posts: 354

Re: promiscuous users

I can put in my two cents worth for the second and third questions.

2. Is it possible, in a safe way, to allow passwordless 'su' between these 3 users?    Probably not. The point of the password is to prevent random people from accessing your root area, thus keeping people from installing stuff to spy on you, altering your system, and possibly damaging your hardware. The unpassworded SSH might not be a good idea, unless it's "unpassworded" in the sense that it's doing it automatically so you do not have to enter the password each time.

3. Any tips on sharing configs (dotfiles) between the three users? I've copied peets' dotfiles over to the 2 other users, then made small tweaks. Sometimes I modify something with one user and would like the change to apply to the other two as well. So far manual copying of lines/files hasn't been too complicated.    Look into symlinks. Basically they are little signs that tell the programs, "Hey, look over there!"

A symbolic link is a "file" pointing to another file.

To make a symbolic link :

  ln /original/file /new/link

This makes /original/file and /new/link the same file - edit one and the other will change. The file will not be gone until both /original/file and /new/link are deleted.

You can only do this with files. For folders, you must make a "soft" link.

To make a soft symbolic link :

  ln -s /original/file /new/link

Example:

  ln -s /usr/src/linux-2.4.20 /usr/src/linux

Note that -s makes an "empty" file pointing to the original file/folder. So if you delete the folder a symlink points to, you will be stuck with a dead symlink (just rm it).

I keep getting distracted from my webserver project...

huh? oooh...  shiny!

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#3 2009-04-03 13:57:29

rson451
Member
From: Annapolis, MD USA
Registered: 2007-04-15
Posts: 1,233
Website

Re: promiscuous users

2. If you set up sudo for the three of them, they could all do "sudo su - newuser" to switch users.  You'd have to set up NOPASSWD for su though.


archlinux - please read this and this — twice — then ask questions.
--
http://rsontech.net | http://github.com/rson

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#4 2009-04-03 15:27:32

hacosta
Member
From: Mexico
Registered: 2006-10-22
Posts: 423

Re: promiscuous users

symbolic links + right permissions should do the trick, it is possible to start multiple instances of X, but it seems to me that you'd be better off using virtual desktops <- My 2 c

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#5 2009-04-03 16:50:36

peets
Member
From: Montreal
Registered: 2007-01-11
Posts: 936
Website

Re: promiscuous users

hacosta wrote:

symbolic links + right permissions should do the trick, it is possible to start multiple instances of X, but it seems to me that you'd be better off using virtual desktops <- My 2 c

yeah that's what I used to do. But X sucks and a crash in one of my "personnalities" brings down the other two. That's why I run three Xs now. And trying to figure out where/which bug reports to file.

I hadn't thought of sudo. I'll reinstall it and read into it a bit.

For 1: ssh allows passwordless login with a security certificate. I could log in to one user with a password, and that user has a certificate that can be used to authenticate and log in automatically as two other users? I really don't know how to do this in practice though. And I'm too lazy to really read up on it right now.

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#6 2009-04-03 19:01:59

dhave
Arch Linux f@h Team Member
From: Outside the matrix.
Registered: 2005-05-15
Posts: 1,112

Re: promiscuous users

Maybe I'm missing something, but I resent the insinuation of the subject of this thread.


Donate to Arch!

Tired? There's a nap for that. --anonymous

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#7 2009-04-03 20:20:27

signor_rossi
Member
Registered: 2007-08-24
Posts: 257

Re: promiscuous users

dhave wrote:

Maybe I'm missing something, but I resent the insinuation of the subject of this thread.

No, I wanted to point that out too. lol:lol::lol:

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#8 2009-04-04 02:50:41

peets
Member
From: Montreal
Registered: 2007-01-11
Posts: 936
Website

Re: promiscuous users

Wait until I start my "windows suck" thread...

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